Integral equations
By Brad Rodgers (P1930) on Monday,
March 19, 2001 - 10:54 pm :
Is there a way to solve integral equations such as
I can't seem to think of a way to solve this, or any others like
it.
Thanks,
Brad
By Michael Doré (Md285) on Monday, March 19,
2001 - 11:08 pm :
We need to clarify what the equation means. If
you're integrating
then
is a variable so it is not allowed to
appear in the integration limits. Nor is it then allowed to appear on the LHS
of the equation. I think what you mean is this:
Find all functions
which satisfy (for every fixed
):
where
represents
at
.
If this is what you mean, then the thing to do is differentiate each side
with respect to
. (We're allowed to do this as the equation is an
identity in
.) The RHS comes to
by the fundamental theorem of
calculus. We get:
So
is the only solution.
By Brad Rodgers (P1930) on Monday,
March 19, 2001 - 11:31 pm :
Actually, that particular example is a bit easy, so here's
another one that might prove more useful
By Brad Rodgers (P1930) on Monday,
March 19, 2001 - 11:34 pm :
Oops, hadn't yet seen your post, your interpretation is what I
mean, so to rephrase the second question correctly
By Michael Doré (Md285) on Monday, March 19,
2001 - 11:56 pm :
Same idea. You can differentiate both sides,
and using the fundamental theorem of calculus:
So
and again
is the only possibility.
Are you happy with the fundamental theorem of calculus step? The fact we need
to use is that if:
then
provided
is nicely behaved.
By Brad Rodgers (P1930) on Tuesday,
March 20, 2001 - 12:32 am :
Sorry, hadn't really read that last post either, now that I
understand that, I think that I see how to do all of these. Since
this thread is mainly devoted to differential equations, I'll go
ahead and post the original question I wanted to apply this
to
Solve:
Thus far, I've gotten using the method above and ordinary
differential solving methods,
dy/dx=tan(-4 /25x +C)
This doesn't seem to integrate easily. Are there other ways than
just substituting dy/dx=z?
For that bit about the fundemental theorem of calculus, it
doesn't seem intuitional that a problem involving integrating
from 0 to x would have the same answer as if I were integrating
from 100 to x. How can this be?
Thanks,
Brad
By Michael Doré (Md285) on Tuesday, March 20,
2001 - 12:47 am :
If you let
be the integral of
from
100 to
and let
be the integral of
from 0 to
then:
The last term on the RHS is a constant. So differentiating we get:
as required.
By Michael Doré (Md285) on Tuesday, March 20,
2001 - 12:53 am :
For the problem at the start of your
message, once again we need to separate the integration variable
from the constant x.